I think that most insurance providers will not fund SED. Having said that, I still think it's odd that a spine center will go out of it's way to tell a patient that another center's procedure is not covered. I would check with the SED provider. As I said it may not be covered, but I would not depend on the info received from a competitor.
Anyone considering SED should contact the SED doctors for inclusion criteria. From my memory (which cannot be trusted), discs with grade V tears are not good candidates. Discs with severe collapse and loss of disc height are not good candidates. Classic discectomy candidates are good candidates for SED. This leads me to the conclusion that if you are a good candidate for one, you stand a good chance for all of the procedures, whatever the 'twist' they add in addition to the traditional discectomy. Having said that, I believe that the thermal annuloplasty as the twist, gives SED a chance to deal with discogenic LBP that most other discectomy techniques don't. If I could go back and redo my 2000 and 2001 discectomies, I would do SED.
How long will it last... depends on how lucky you are. IMHO, if you get a few years out of it, you win. More and you win big. Like all discectomies, there is a substantial chance that success will last only a few months. The recurrant herniation story is very common. Even so, the alternatives (adr and fusion) are to be avoided if possible... so IMHO, good candidates for discecomy should try it first instead of opting for the bigger surgery first. If you fail that (like my wife did... her endoscopic discectomy was a great success, but only for 3 months) you are unlucky and lose the bet.
Mark
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